With the passage and signing into law of H.R.1, aka, The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the deduction limit for Section 179 increases to $1,000,000 for 2018 and beyond. The limit on equipment purchases likewise has increased to $2.5 million.

Further, the bonus depreciation is 100% and is made retroactive to 9/27/2017 and good through 2022. The bonus depreciation also now includes used equipment.

How Much Can I Save on My Taxes in 2018?
It depends on the amount of qualifying equipment and software that you purchase and put into use. See the handy Section 179 Calculator that’s fully updated for 2018, and includes any/all increases from any future legislation.

When Do I Have to Do This By?
Section 179 for 2018 expires midnight, 12/31/2018. If you wish to deduct the full price of your equipment from your 2018 taxes and take advantage of the new higher deduction limits, it must be purchased and put into service by then.

Many businesses are finding Section 179 Qualified Financing to be an attractive option in 2018, especially since the expected Federal Discount Rate increases don’t leave much time for action. Please apply today.

More Section 179 Deduction Questions Answered

Welcome to Section179.Org, your definitive resource for all things Section 179. We’ve brought together a large amount of information regarding Section 179, and clearly and honestly discuss the various aspects of IRS §179 in plain language. This will allow you to make the best possible financial decisions for your company.

Section 179 can be extremely profitable to you, so it is to your benefit to learn as much as possible. To begin, you may have a lot of questions regarding Section 179 such as:

CLARK Material Handling Company (CLARK) is pleased to announce that Scott Johnson, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, has been elected the new Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Industrial Truck Association (ITA). Scott accepted the gavel from outgoing Chairman Brett Wood of Toyota at ITA’s
34th Annual Meeting held at Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, September 13-16, 2017.

“CLARK was instrumental in the formation of the Industrial Truck Association
over 65 years ago,” commented Scott upon accepting this prestigious position.
“For all these years, ITA has been the leading organization in the industrial truck
industry in North America, and has led the way for the formation of sister
organizations in other parts of the world. I am humbled and extremely proud to
support and now lead this organization which has served the forklift industry and
its members so well for so long.”

Scott previously served on ITA’s Statistics Committee and has represented
CLARK on ITA’s Executive Committee for several years. Scott has worked in the
material handling industry for over 20 years. He is also an active member of the
Material Handling Equipment Distributors Association (MHEDA). Scott is an avid
outdoorsman, and a proud alumnus of the University of Kentucky.

Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration releases a preliminary list of the 10 most frequently cited safety and health violations for the fiscal year, compiled from nearly 32,000 inspections of workplaces by federal OSHA staff. One remarkable thing about the list is that it rarely changes.

Year after year, inspectors see thousands of the same on-the-job hazards, any one of which could result in a fatality or severe injury. More than 4,500 workers are killed on the job every year, and approximately 3 million are injured, despite the fact that by law, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their workers. If all employers simply corrected the top 10 hazards, we are confident the number of deaths, amputations and hospitalizations would drastically decline. Consider this list a starting point for workplace safety:

Fall protection

Hazard communication

Scaffolds

Respiratory protection

Lockout/tagout

Powered industrial trucks

Ladders

Machine guarding

Electrical wiring

Electrical, general requirements

It’s no coincidence that falls are among the leading causes of worker deaths, particularly in construction, and our top 10 list features lack of fall protection as well as ladder and scaffold safety issues. We know how to protect workers from falls, and have an ongoing campaign to inform employers and workers about these measures. Employers must take these issues seriously. We also see far too many workers killed or gruesomely injured when machinery starts up suddenly while being repaired, or hands and fingers are exposed to moving parts. Lockout/tagout and machine guarding violations are often the culprit here.

Proper lockout/tagout procedures ensure that machines are powered off and can’t be turned on while someone is working on them. And installing guards to keep hands, feet and other appendages away from moving machinery prevents amputations and worse. Respiratory protection is essential for preventing long term and sometimes fatal health problems associated with breathing in asbestos, silica or a host of other toxic substances. But we can see from our list of violations that not nearly enough employers are providing this needed protection and training.

The high number of fatalities associated with forklifts, and high number of violations for powered industrial truck safety, tell us that many workers are not being properly trained to safely drive these kinds of potentially hazardous equipment. Rounding out the top 10 list are violations related to electrical safety, an area where the dangers are well-known. Our list of top violations is far from comprehensive.

OSHA regulations cover a wide range of hazards, all of which imperil worker health and safety. And we urge employers to go beyond the minimal requirements to create a culture of safety at work, which has been shown to reduce costs, raise productivity and improve morale.

To help them, we have released new recommendations for creating a safety and health program at their workplaces. We have many additional resources, including a wealth of information on our website and our free and confidential On-site Consultation Program. But tackling the most common hazards is a good place to start saving workers’ lives and limbs.

Learn more about Valley Industrial Trucks’ Forklift Operator Safety Training, and contact us to be sure your operators are trained to properly operate the forklifts you own, under the conditions you operate. Well-trained forklift operators are more productive, less costly and more profitable for your material handling operation.

Well-maintained forklifts are also more productive, safer and have a longer useful life. Find out more about how we can help you keep your forklift fleet operating at peak efficiency and safety at our forklift services page.

Industrial trucks and forklift sales are directly tied to our economy. When our economy does well, more forklifts are required to move the goods ordered by customers and end-users. Conversely, when a downturn occurs, forklift sales drop, sometimes dramatically as they did with the recession of 2009. What few people understood until now, the economic impact these forklifts make on our economy. Recently the Industrial Truck Association in conjunction with Oxford Economics researched the topic, and below are some of the significant findings.

The economic impact of forklift on the US economy is $25.7 billion dollars. Here in Ohio forklifts generate over $2.4 billion dollars to our state economy.

Over $15 billion of that contribution is a result jobs that support forklift sales and service such as service technicians, the parts that are made and sold and installed on forklifts, training centers etc…

The Bureau of Labor and Statistic (BLS) estimates that there are about 540,000 industrial truck operators in the US.

There are over 200,000 forklifts sold annually in the US.

Over 1 million forklifts are sold around the world each year.

The industrial truck industry generate about $5.3 billion dollars in state and local taxes. Here in Ohio, state and local taxes are over $179 million dollars.

As you can see, when we sell a forklift we create a lot of work not only here at Valley, but for our customers, their customers and the impact is felt all throughout our state and national economy.

The hot summer months are upon us. With increased heat and humidity workers become more susceptible to heat-related illnesses. Workers who are not accustomed to working in the heat can quickly become ill and experience heat stroke, which can lead to serious illness and even death. Since your forklift operators will frequently work outside and on equipment that utilizes internal combustion engine, part of your forklift operator training, should be awareness of heat illness.

There are a few things to keep in mind about heat-related illness and what you can do to help prevent it in your workers.

Train your employees about the dangers of heat-related illnesses. OSHA has excellent training information and materials to help you relate this information to all of your employees who work in the heat. Part of that training should be to recognize the symptoms of heat-related illnesses and to act upon them immediately. Never brush it off and continue working. The symptoms exist for a reason!

Understand that all employees are not equally able to resist the heat. Employees should be able to assess their own conditioning and how well they handle heat. Employees who are taking certain prescription medications or have certain chronic illnesses, such as diabetes, need to pay special attention to how they feel while working. Employees who are new to outdoor jobs are often most susceptible to heat-related illnesses. Try to ease them into the normal workload gradually, until you’re confident they are acclimated.

Provide additional water stations during the hotter months, at more convenient locations, and encourage employees to drink water every 15 minutes or so, based on temperature. Never wait until you are thirsty to start re-hydrating.

Provide for more frequent breaks. In the long run employees will be more productive in the heat if they are getting proper rest to allow their bodies to cool down while also keeping themselves better hydrated during these breaks.

Proper ventilation and air movement inside your warehouse or material handling facility is very important in keeping the temperature at safe levels and your workers cool. Ceiling fans, screen doors for warehouse dock doors, and roof vents are great ways to keep your facility comfortable and more productive.

OSHA has provided a wealth of information to help you provide a safe atmosphere to deal with the summer heat. While OSHA does not have a standard pertaining to preventing heat illnesses, it is up to us to be sure we have done everything that we can to help our employees stay safe and avoid heat-related illnesses.

Well-trained and equipped employees are more productive employees. Keeping them safe from the heat during the summer months ensures better productivity for tomorrow and years beyond. But it is ultimately up to us as the employers to be sure our employees are prepared to understand and act accordingly to ensure their own safety.

The Industrial Truck Association has announced it’s second annual Forklift Safety Day, to be held Tuesday, June 13.

While most of you won’t be able to attend, there are things you can do to take advantage of this day to help create awareness about the dangers that forklifts present and how to minimize the potential for accidents that can result in injury or death, damage to your facility, equipment and financial losses.

We’ve compiled a short list of things you can do on June 13th to improve safety on and around your forklifts.

Make sure all your forklift operators have been trained and that their refresher training is up to date, if applicable or necessary.

Take time to teach your forklift operators the importance of daily inspections of their forklifts. Daily inspections reduce the risk of equipment failure and catch small problems before they blossom into giant ones. You can find daily forklift inspection sheets on our Training Page for both IC and electric units.

Take some time to gather any staff that operates around forklifts, but not on them, to refresh them about the dangers of this equipment and how to be sure to use safe procedures when they are in an area of your facility where forklifts are being operated.

Make sure all your forklift’s maintenance is up to date. If you have a Planned Maintenance Agreement, this would be a good time to review it with your service provider to ensure all standard checkpoints as well as unique equipment attachments are being inspected and maintained properly.

Review any unique “site specific” features your facility may have and be sure your operators are aware of proper handling of equipment while on or around these features (ramps, areas where floors can be slick, floor substrates that vary etc…)

Make sure that training is part of your company’s orientation for anyone that will or MIGHT operate a forklift. Remember, employees that have not been properly trained aren’t even allowed to sit on and start a forklift, much less move it out of the way of anything.

Make sure you have lock-out kits to ensure that forklifts that do not pass an inspection are locked out immediately until repairs are made.

Review all your forklifts for possible replacement. Old forklifts, or those that are getting “up there” in hours, might be potential threats. Review safety records and maintenance logs for your equipment. You might find this could be a good time to replace some or even all of your forklifts.-

Our goal is to help you operate safe, efficient and productive forklift equipment. To discuss forklift safety, operator training –or to get a quote on new equipment, please Contact Us or give us a call at 888-375-0829..